Solidity Alternatives for Writing Smart Contracts

Solidity is the main language for Ethereum and EVM-compatible chains, and it is very much alive. Solidity 0.8.38 was released on October 22, 2026. People searching for alternatives usually want one of two things: a different language for the same EVM chains, or the native language of a non-EVM chain.

The first group here is Vyper, Arbitrum Stylus, Huff and Fe. The second is Rust with Anchor for Solana, Move for Sui and Aptos, and Cairo for Starknet. All are free to use; the costs are audits, tooling and the time to learn a new model.

Prices below are as of November 8, 2026. Our method is on How we review tools.

Quick comparison

Vyper

Vyper has the longest production record of the EVM options here; Curve's pools are written in it. The syntax reads like Python, and the language leaves out things Solidity allows, such as modifiers and inheritance, so contracts are shorter and easier to audit line by line.

The stable line is 0.4.3, released June 19, 2025, which made Prague the default EVM version and added the @raw_return decorator for proxy patterns. Version 0.5.0 is in beta, with 0.5.0b2 tagged on November 5, 2026. The project's security policy points production users to its public advisory list and audit repository.

Best for: EVM teams who want a smaller, more readable language for DeFi contracts.

Pricing:

• Free and open source (Apache-2.0)
• Install with pip: vyper 0.4.3

Watch out for:

• A compiler bug broke reentrancy locks in versions 0.2.15, 0.2.16 and 0.3.0, and attackers used it to drain several Curve pools in July 2023.

Official site: Vyper.

Rust with Anchor

On Solana, programs are written in Rust, and Anchor is the framework most teams use on top. It gives you a Rust eDSL with macros for account checks, an IDL file that describes the program, a TypeScript client generated from that IDL, and a CLI for tests and deploys. Its README notes that the flow will feel familiar to Solidity and Truffle users.

The crate anchor-lang is at 1.2.2, published October 28, 2026, under Apache-2.0, and the repository now sits under the Solana Foundation's GitHub organisation. Solana programs are stateless and keep data in separate accounts, a different mental model from Solidity's contract storage.

Best for: Teams moving from Ethereum to Solana who want guard rails around Rust.

Pricing:

• Free and open source (Apache-2.0)
• anchor-lang 1.2.2 on crates.io

Watch out for:

• Anchor 2.0 is in release candidates (v2.0.0-rc.2 on GitHub), so a project started on 1.x should plan for breaking changes when 2.0 lands.

Official site: Rust with Anchor.

Move

Move started at Meta's Diem project and treats assets as typed resources that cannot be copied or dropped by accident, which removes whole classes of token bugs. Sui and Aptos both use it. Sui's version is built around owned objects; its node release mainnet-v1.83.1 is dated November 3, 2026.

Aptos keeps closer to the original Diem storage model. The Aptos CLI reached v9.6.0 on September 22, 2026.

Best for: Projects where assets and ownership rules are the core of the contract.

Pricing:

• Free; Sui code under Apache-2.0
• aptos-core under the Innovation-Enabling Source Code License

Watch out for:

• Sui Move and Aptos Move are separate dialects with different storage models, so a package written for one does not run on the other unchanged; the Sui repository describes its object-based model.
• Aptos's core repository uses a source-available licence, not an OSI open-source one.

Official site: Move.

Cairo

Cairo is StarkWare's language for provable programs: code whose execution can be checked with a STARK proof. On Starknet, every contract is Cairo, compiled to an intermediate format called Sierra. The syntax borrows heavily from Rust.

The compiler is at v2.21.0, tagged October 9, 2026, under Apache-2.0, and the Scarb package manager tracks the same version number. For a Solidity developer, the learning cost is both the language and Starknet's account model, where every account is a contract.

Best for: Teams building on Starknet or writing programs that need proofs of execution.

Pricing:

• Free and open source (Apache-2.0)
• Cairo v2.21.0; Scarb v2.21.0

Watch out for:

• Starknet contracts compile to Sierra, not EVM bytecode, per the Cairo repository, so Solidity audits, libraries and tools such as Hardhat do not carry over.

Official site: Cairo.

Arbitrum Stylus

Stylus lets you write contracts in Rust and compile them to WebAssembly that runs beside the EVM on Arbitrum chains. A Stylus contract can call a Solidity contract and the reverse, so you can move one hot function to Rust without rewriting the rest. The stylus-sdk crate is at 0.10.10, released October 2, 2026, under MIT or Apache-2.0.

Deployment has two steps: deploy, then activate. An activation lasts 365 days by default and can be renewed with a keepalive call once the program is at least 31 days old.

Best for: Arbitrum teams who need Rust for compute-heavy logic next to existing Solidity.

Pricing:

• Free and open source (MIT or Apache-2.0)
• Deploy and activation cost gas on the target chain

Watch out for:

• After a Security Council emergency action on February 10, 2026, new and expired Stylus programs cannot be activated on Arbitrum One or Nova, per the Arbitrum notice; Solidity deployment is unaffected.

Official site: Arbitrum Stylus.

Huff

Huff sits at the opposite end from Vyper. It exposes the EVM stack directly and replaces functions with macros, so you write close to raw opcodes. It was first built at Aztec for on-chain elliptic-curve maths, and teams use it for a few gas-critical contracts rather than whole protocols.

The original compiler, huff-rs, is marked deprecated. Huff Neo, a maintained fork, released v1.7.1 on October 24, 2026 under MIT or Apache-2.0, and the official successor, huff2, is still missing features.

Best for: Specialists squeezing gas out of a single hot path.

Pricing:

• Free and open source (MIT or Apache-2.0)
• Huff Neo v1.7.1

Watch out for:

• The huff2 README still lists jump tables as unfinished, and the project has no tagged release, so current Huff projects rely on a community fork.

Official site: Huff.

Fe

Fe is a Rust-like, statically typed language for the EVM with explicit effects and message-passing contracts. It restarted under a new year-based version scheme: Fe 26.4.1 in September 2026 and 26.5.1 on October 28, 2026.

It installs through a script called feup and ships its own CLI. For a Solidity developer, the attraction is Rust-style types and error handling without leaving the EVM.

Best for: Developers who want to try a Rust-style EVM language before it matures.

Pricing:

• Free and open source (Apache-2.0)

Watch out for:

• The Fe README states that Fe 26.x is not production-ready.

Official site: Fe.

How to choose

When to stay with Solidity

For most EVM work, Solidity is still the safer bet. It has the largest audit market, OpenZeppelin libraries and tools such as Hardhat and Foundry, and the oracle networks on our Chainlink alternatives page all ship Solidity SDKs. Switch languages when your target chain requires it, not for syntax alone.

Frequently asked questions